Any birders out there?

Any black on it as well? Could it have been an Eastern goldfinch? (Although they are quite yellowish.)

Where do you live, @rojo? Are you in the states? What region?

@bkcunningham Sorry, central texas locale and @janbb there could have been some black on the back feathers but I think it was just a darker brown.

I love this site. I can play around with it for hours listening to the different bird sounds. See if it helps.

If that doesn’t help. Here is another site to check out that is specific to central Texas.

Sounds like it might be a house wren. They were frequent visitors to my mom’s backyard in San Antonio. Here’s its song

What does it’s beak look like? Slender and pointed or conical? Seed eaters have thick conical bills and insect eaters have slender pointed bills. Look up Cowbirds, Phoebes & Towhees to start and see if there is a match.

@thorninmud Ooh yes, Wrens..,,perhaps?

@rojo Is it sitting vertical on the tree branches or creeping around upside down?
Brown Creepers and Nuthatches are a couple of just a few species that spiral around branches upside down looking for insects.

Is the song much larger than the bird? That would fit @thorninmud‘s excellent suggestion.

The wrens cock their little tails upwards sometimes, which gives it a cheeky look. it may also have been a Bewick’s or Carolina wren.

Check out the Carolina chickadee also.

Here are 23 songbirds of central Texas, some obviously not what you are describing.

@gailcalled I love the little Bewicks Wrens, I have scads of them over here, great little cheery singers. :-)

Coloma; My favorite bird, if I were forced to choose, would be the winter wren. it is really tiny and has a voice that Maria Callas would have envied.

Listen to it sing here

@gailcalled I looked up the Carolina wren and in the description the call was given as “tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea” which I thought could well described the one I heard but when I listened on line it did not sound much like it. Size wise and some of the coloration patterns seemed right. Then I looked up the Berwick’s and I think that looks more like but, again, not the same call. And yes, its sound was much bigger that the bird.
I think you guys are right on the wren track, I will just keep looking to see what I can find. It might be a house wren as @thorninmud suggested
@Coloma it was holding onto an almost vertical branch with its tail straight down. Could not really see the beak as I was almost directly under it.
@bkcunningham I am still enjoying the site you forwarded, thanks.

@rojo Wrens do not usuallly cling like that to vertical branches. They perch upright with twitchy upright flicking tails.
That’s a big clue, I’d say a Creeper maybe. They cling to vertical branches and have stiff tails for balance. Creepers, woodpeckers, nuthatches all have that ability.

Look up Brown Creeper.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/brown_creeper/id

Did it look like this?

You can see on the maps that Texas is a winter range only for them. They are year ‘round residents here in California.